


the place where all the ladders start

by generalguideline



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Everyone lives, Intersex, M/M, Menstruation, Post-Game, Protectiveness, Sharing a Bed, coming to terms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-23
Updated: 2014-07-23
Packaged: 2018-02-10 02:50:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2008179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/generalguideline/pseuds/generalguideline
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(rock bottom)</p><p>An interlude in the aftermath.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the place where all the ladders start

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by this kinkmeme prompt asking for intersex Anders/Fenris: http://dragonage-kink.livejournal.com/10749.html?thread=42432253#t42432253

The clawed hands of a shriek closed around his neck.

Anders gasped. Clutched at metal, reached for his magic, and felt instinctively that dream had somehow merged with waking. His palms only gradually recognised the articulated joints, the warmth of skin through leather, the implacable intent in the hands. His nose next, the cloying spice of Fenris' tainted sweat. Pre-dawn light filtered through the aravel's stretched material, insufficient to see more than shadow and shape, but the lines still glimmered. The wash of relief that the worst had not occurred.

Fenris stopped shaking him as soon as Anders released the half-formed mental backlash. It was a brutal waking, but the darkspawn nightmares and their consequence was worse; they had all learned force was the only tactic to wake Anders completely. 

'You are ill. Tend yourself.'

Anders was groggy and physically aching. 'What? I--'

Fenris drew at the blanket over Anders, from between his thighs where his sleeping motion had tucked it tight. The rusty stains were a familiar smudged darkness in this limited light, as was the meaty smell.

Dread. 'Shit.'

The sound of air sucked in sharply, through nostrils whose disgusted flare Anders could well imagine. 'Rather, blood. Though I am no healer, I believe is sign of worse illness than had you soiled yourself.'

'No, I meant--' Anders scrubbed his palms over his cheeks, his eyes, noting in passing the blood caked around his nails, the seams of his fingers. Scratching himself too, as the trickle would have leaked and itched all night. His surge of self-disgust would have daunted even Fenris, who appeared to tend more to resignation these days. 'This is not illness. Please give me privacy.'

A moment when it seemed Fenris would argue, then the self-appointed prison guard – bodyguard, not quite templar watcher, something Anders could not explain – slid from the bed and left their little aravel, lacing the opening closed from outside. A murmur of voices beyond the door as Fenris spoke with whichever second layer of guard the Dalish Keeper had appointed. Voices and paired footsteps faded away.

Reluctant to move, a wave of trickling wetness finally had Anders peel himself out of the bed. The cycles would not be so bad if he could somehow predict, but whatever vagary of his parentage had given him this had not seen fit to let him follow a woman's usual rhythms, and the darkspawn taint had slowed and spaced those irregularities even further. Age had seen a marked increase in painful consequences; he would bleed quantities fit to make him faint, suffer an upset stomach as a reaction to the sickening pain as well as the swelling womb inside him irritating neighbouring tissue, and would hurt sufficient to vomit. He had none of his usual mitigating measures within reach.

Anders always put the discomfort from his mind, until he bled again and he had to remember; each time he castigated himself and told himself next time he would be better prepared to clean and hide and cope, and after every occurrence ended, he would simply forget, yet again. After well over a score of years. He could have laughed if he remembered how.

The water in the aravel's lidded bucket was cool but not freezing. Anders did not want to risk his magic to warm it, not this close to awakening. He stripped, shivering slightly. The blood was all over his belly as well, most of the way down to his knees, beads racing along thighs to ring his ankles. 

A corner of the now-ruined blanket dipped and soaked, and he cleaned himself carefully, then ripped the remains to form some makeshift padding. 

*

Dawn saw Fenris training idly with Hawke, using spear for the sake of variety. A few strokes, easily parried, counter thrust, and they would pause and chat, circling in slow pace, before coming together again for another lazy exchange. On the perimeter of their circuit, Aveline and Donnic stretched idly together, still in soft sleeping clothes, stretching liable to turn to wrestling before long; a few Dalish also watching with interest, on occasion the elven warriors' interest in battle form leading them to step past their partial ostracism of the outsiders and participate.

They had not been with the Dalish long. A fortnight today, an gentle interlude in their months attempting to evade notice and the consequential capture. Fenris welcomed the opportunity to let go of his paranoia, and found himself enjoying being so casual about a skill on which his life depended. Each slack-armed stroke, his mind and body screaming at him about proper form, and he stubbornly let himself be _less_ than perfect. 

The impact across his ribs was hard enough to bruise, the air rushing out of him. Halfway through the gasps threatened to become a laugh. Hawke laughed a little as well, in gentle triumph. Fenris quashed the part of himself that wanted to be embarrassed. 

As opponent, there was no shame in battling Hawke; she was his exact height, yet likely twice his weight if not more, shoulders and arms which spoke an impressive dedication to her chosen weapon. They commenced circling again once he caught his breath, behind them the sounds of grunts and fleshy contact speaking of Aveline and Donnic's descent to the floor.

'You look as if you're sleeping better,' Hawke noted. 'Less twitchy. How is your charge?'

'Still the darkspawn nightmares, but generally he has returned to some pattern. Bethany and Merrill were correct in that constant surrounds and familiarity with a place assist a fledgling mage greatly with his unconscious control.'

'That first night in the Deep Roads when he nearly cast a firestorm on us all--'

'I suspect the worst now would be a mental blast against one who woke him unwisely. That, I can take.' Fenris was rueful, not enraged. He could afford to be.

Hawke looked at him sidewards. An attempt to be cunning, Fenris supposed; he had to smile at her guilelessness, her delicate features atop that dedicated body, and never a less than honest truth crossing that face even after all this time amongst Kirkwall's nobility. 

'So will you be requesting an aravel of your own? Or joining the Dalish warriors in theirs? The Keeper asked Bethany after you again. Return to your rightful origin, so on.' A broad grin. 

Fenris ignored the questions. 'They continue to believe Bethany is the equivalent of our Keeper.'

'Much to Merrill's delight.' That, from Isabela. She looked years younger in the morning, hair unbound and wild, the eyes with their tattooed kohl seemingly softer, breasts unbound and generous beneath loose shirt. She held a steaming mug of a sharp and bitter tea. 'The amount of time she's spending with their – bard? I think she intends to reskill as a storyteller.'

'Varric must be proud.'

Hawke and Isabela swapped a grin, which was an opening too significant for Fenris to avoid; he wove the spear's blunted end through Hawke's guard and returned the bruise now pinching across his ribs.

'Meanwhile, sweetness,' Isabela targeted him with her tea cup while Hawke doubled over to cough. 'Don't think I didn't notice you avoiding the more important question.'

'I have no desire to run away and join the Dalish.'

'I rather meant the one about when you'll take a bed of your own.' 

Fenris could not think of a quick enough response to fill the silence, his spear stilling. Isabela's smile looked sad, for some reason.

'Not that we haven't appreciated what you chose to do for us.' She stretched as she stood, the nightshirt hugging her warmly. An amble across the training circle to rest her hand between Hawke's shoulderblades, a prop as Hawke struggled to stand. Isabela sipped her tea, watching.

'There was no one else who could have done it.' A simple answer, one that had nothing to do with wants or warmth or usefulness.

They had been deep beneath the ground when Anders revealed he lost both his demon and his ability to control his own magic. Anders shouldered the burden of suffering new lessons grimly. There had been no privacy; they had all been witness to both Merrill and Bethany's re-schooling of the older mage, a shame compounded by Anders' vast power in comparison to the other two, made so (in Fenris' opinion) because the consequence of his lack of control was so significant. But the mage's persistence had been admirable, in the face of his other choices. Fenris had thought, for some time, that one morning he would simply wake unaccountably well rested to find the mage had ended himself during the night.

'I'm bloody dying,' Hawke groaned. She keeled over, spreadeagled. 'You bastard.'

'You just want attention.' Isabela placed a dusty foot on Hawke's belly, beringed toes curling to grasp the shirt. A tug bared flexing abdominals. 'Show me this deathblow, I might kiss it better.'

Fenris watched, longer than he should have, until the threatened shirt bared the bottom of a small breast, Isabela's flat foot worming further up and between while she stood over and continued to sip tea calmly as Hawke squirmed. 

Then he lowered the borrowed spear and averted his eyes from the affection, in respect, he told himself.

*

Merrill paused before descending to the bathing ground. 

She held a small skin wrapped around several bundles of fine furs. Anders' request had been unusual, Merrill's understanding of human physicality somewhat lacking – she spotted more than flowed, and the Dalish typically let what small blood there was fall into their clothes. But Anders had been specific, and the furs Merrill found (in the absence of much spare woven cloth) had been cured and softened for decoration, not for sturdy purpose. 

She could hear Fenris' voice as well as Anders'. Anders always came to bathe at times when the others had finished, discomforted with the lack of privacy. It reminded him too much of the Circle, he'd said, everyone watching everyone, weighing everyone, looking for _signs_. Signs of what, Merrill had not asked. But now here was Fenris, Anders' voice rising in irritation while Fenris' softened in response.

Then a splashing, which could only have been Anders, all those long limbs and extravagance of motion. 

Merrill wondered if she should wait. Fenris, too, seemed content to wait until Anders made a move. Merrill suspected he took his self-imposed role of watchful eye a little too far. Of late Anders had been particularly irate with Fenris, his prior grudging gratitude for the nighttime protection eroded.

Merrill or Bethany could have taken the night duty, guarding from the Fade. But Fenris' markings gave him unusual sensitivity – or perhaps lack of sensitivity – to impending magic. The first night Anders nearly destroyed them in his sleep, Fenris had woken, his markings burning, so he said, with numbness, ears roaring silence in the dark, uncertain of what he was feeling – or not feeling – until it was almost too late. He woke the rest of them with a shout, running to wake Anders from whatever nightmare where Anders battled demon or darkspawn, and foiled the spell half-cast by merit of taking it full to the chest.

Fenris' self-imposed duty had become sleeping in the same aravel – which could have taken two beds, if they had asked – which they had not – and no one seemed comfortable asking. Merrill caught Isabela and Hawke sneaking a peak some days prior, but Fenris had a roll of blankets at one end of the pallet, Anders' human-styled pillow at the other, and both women had appeared more confused with this situation than it warranted. 

Still, no one had suffered more than a few singed hairs and occasionally a proximity burn since Fenris volunteered himself as most suitable nightly companion. Merrill enjoyed her sleep too much and Bethany blushed and started uncharacteristically stammering at the mention of sleeping anywhere near Anders, after which it had come out she thought of him too much like her father to put 'Anders' and 'Bethany' and 'in bed' anywhere near each other, after which Hawke and Isabela had descended into shrieking laughter – _What on earth did your Papa get up to with you two?_ – which had only embarrassed Bethany and consequently Anders even further. 

So it had been Fenris. Merrill thought he must have hated it, but he seemed comfortable, having a place again. A role he had chosen.

Merrill was uncomfortable listening to them talking, even though the words were indistinct over the running water. She looked for their clothes, then left the little package tucked into Anders' coat and departed.


End file.
